Off to a new school for David. The first time David will be the youngest class in his school. Evansville has K-2 at Levi Leonard Elementary. 3rd - 5th grade goes to the intermediate school, Theodore Robinson. His building was the old Evansville High School. So they have lockers about the same size I had when I went to high school. Pretty weird.
His new teacher is Mrs. Horgen who has 3 kids at home under 4. She must be crazy busy. So far David is adjusting to not having any good friends in his class. (Last year he had a really good buddy in the same room with him). But we are on week 3 and he announced last week: "Mrs.Horgen's class is STILL bully free!"
The first day of class he found out that a bully in his class last year (the one David punched) would be in his class again this year. Well, the first day of class the teacher was handing out the class jobs for each kid. When she read off this boys name she ripped up the papers and thru them in the trash and said:" Well since he moved I guess we are done with that!" David loved this of course, especially the dramatic finish of ripping up the pages.
Our newest challenge is that his teacher is much less a "mother hen" who takes care of her little ones. She has a much higher expectation of her students to be responsible for their assignments on their own. A good thing for David to experience. It is after all 3rd grade. The kids should be able to be responsible for a large amount of stuff.
His spelling is much harder. This is good and bad. His spelling last year was a JOKE! The words were kindergarten level, in my opinion. Unfortunately, now that he is getting words that are appropriate for 3rd grade, this is taking some time to adjust. So David is beginning to learn what it takes to actually have to put effort into school. It is about time.
He was suppose to be responsible for taking his spelling work home and he didn't do it. He forgot it at school. His teacher allowed him to, on the first time, have a consequence for forgetting it. He got a demerit on his reward card the 1st week of school. He was surprised by this. Not only did she have a bigger expectation for him, but she also followed thru when he didn't do as he was expected, the first time.
Obviously, we have moved up to the big kids school. David has always been a rule follower and always been ahead of his classmates in everything except spelling. So this will be very good for him to experience some disappointment and the need to actually work at his grades.
His teacher did make a remark about David's handwriting. In this same conversation she said a remark about David being home schooled. I think I will let this one slide. It better be the only one she makes. She has no idea just who she is dealing with - yet. But for now my guns are holstered. Should more eyebrow raising home school comments come this way, I will unholster them.
John dropped in unannounced to David's class yesterday. He sat in the math class and afterward had lunch with David. I don't feel it is necessary to announce we are coming in advance. That sort of defeats the purpose don't you think? So John was pleased with what he saw and heard. There will be more visits like that, we like to have a pulse on what the atmosphere is like in the class.
Overall, we are glad he has a teacher with higher expectations and I am sure she has figured out already, that we monitoring Davids school activities closely. So we are looking forward to seeing what the year holds for David in 3rd grade.
